By Nick Lindo

 

When did I become spoilt and arrogant?

 

 

We’ve got to the stage in the year where book crits are becoming fairly regular.

 

For those who don’t know, a book crit is where you meet up with a more experienced creative strangely hoping that they’ll tear your book apart so that you can put it back together again.

 

On Thursday Seb and I went into the swanky new Old Street offices of MullenLowe to meet junior creatives Ben and Adam.

 

It was of course great to get advice from two young creatives who are a couple of steps ahead of us on the career path (in that their careers actually exist).

 

But as we were sitting down to chat I asked where they studied.

 

Watford? Miami? Ravensbourne?

 

None of the above.

 

They did it off their own backs.

 

I’m going to repeat that because amongst all the great advice and feedback we got on Thursday this was by far the most inspiring.

 

They did it off their own backs!

 

Two years of nurturing ideas, having them shot down, restarting and constantly refining.

 

The self-discipline and motivation to constantly carve out opportunities to have your work slammed just to get your foot in the door is very impressive.

 

They said they were close to quitting – more than once I assume.

 

Compare that to us.

 

We come into the studio five times a week where mentors take time out of their schedules to help us develop our ideas.

 

It has made me feel beyond spoilt. Arrogant maybe.

 

We’re often told that we should stay humble but I hadn’t realised that simply by not appreciating the opportunities, and by not learning why these opportunities are of such value, you are being wasteful and even disrespectful.

 

I’m looking at my calendar for the week ahead and we have roughly 25 mentors to chat to.

 

Whilst I plan on staying selective about the people I take advice from I’ll make sure that I fully appreciate the position I’m in.

 

It won’t last forever.